The focus of the post is merely on the stance of the candidates and the “sanctity of marriage”, which for me, happens to be a very important aspect of their character. For those of you who are currently following the GOP race for the nomination, you’ll know that there are six candidates that are stealing the spot-light, so to speak.
You have former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich, (sadly, the forerunner in this race) who has been involved in American politics since the late 1970s. He has a lesbian half-sister, Candace Gingrich, and is still in blatant opposition of same-sex marriage. His sister, who works for the Human Rights Campaign, was recently on the Rachel Maddow show, and was quoted as saying the following:
“We’ve always been mutually [respectful] of each other and our abilities and our desires to change the world…The catch is, when they’re at a Christmas gathering sitting across the dinner table from us, he and Callista still have way more rights than me and my wife, Rebecca, and I do.” Not to mention, when Candace and Rebecca got married, he and Callista happened to be on another continent, and therefore did not attend the ceremony.
Moving on to the candidate who I, as a citizen of Massachusetts, have had the displeasure of being a constituent of. When Mitt Romney isn’t making $10,000 bets during debates or flip-flopping on key conservative issues, he’s spending time defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). DOMA is a law that defines marriage as strictly being between one man and one woman. Under Barack Obama’s administration, many pieces of the legislation have been deemed as being unconstitutional and unusable in court. Mitt Romney wrote a letter in 1994 to group of gay Republicans, stating that he would do more for them then Ted Kennedy (his opposition and later winner of the race). Yet, now he stands on the platform without hesitation, claiming that same-sex marriage is detrimental to the country. Romney recently also signed a pledge proposed by NOM, the National Organization of Marriage, that said that if elected, he would lend his support to an amendment that would define marriage as being one between one man and one woman (the full pledge can be found at:
http://www.nomblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Romney-Signed-Pledge.pdf)
Representative Ron Paul has one of the more subtle views on same-sex marriage. Rather than being an extremist, he says that gay marriage doesn’t bother him as long as these couples don’t impose their partnership on others. He opposes federal definitions of marriage, and has said that gay marriages should be up to the states themselves. That being said, he also is a supporter of DOMA, as well as being one of the co-sponsors of the Marriage Protection Act, which is essentially just another way to protest DOMA.
Michele Bachmann, the sole woman in this race, has described herself as being the most consistent conservative candidate. She strictly opposes gay marriage, and along with Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, she signed the NOM pledge. She and her husband, Marcus, are so dedicated to protecting marriage that they have opened a clinic tocure homosexuals of their tragic disease. Marcus has a degree in-clinical psychology, but he is not a licensed professional in the state of Minnesota.
As an attempt to salvage his campaign, Rick Perry recently released a video that has gone viral. His “Strong” ad states that there’s
something wrong in a country where gays can serve openly in the military, but kids can’t pray in school. While the video is only six
days old, it is the most hated video in YouTube’s history. Obviously, he is in “strong” opposition of gay marriage. In fact, in his 2008
book, On My Honor, he paralleled homosexuality and alcoholism, and stated that both groups should simply choose abstinence. As the
Governor of Texas, Perry also tried to support the state’s Sodomy laws, but was shot down after the Supreme Court found them unconstitutional in the eyes of the 14th Amendment.
Finally, you have a person who in my eyes, is usually regarded as the under-dog in this race. Rick Santorum is a former senator of Pennsylvania who uses his faith as a method to go against homosexuality. Most recently, his opinions were put into this article,
(http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/12/11/santorum-gay-couples-destabilize-the-family-no-matter-how-they-have-families/)
which is just chock-full of homophobic language. He states that [gay families are going to]: “destabilize the American family, … change the basic value structure of our country to accommodate… that lifestyle.” He heavily focuses on not only stopping gay marriage, but banning adoption as well as insemination.
If your focus is on gay rights, than none of these candidates is what I would consider healthy options for the Presidency. If we look to our current President, Barack Obama, we find an entirely different attitude. While the President has not enforced any federal legislature on either position on same-sex marriage, he has been quoted as saying he supports the following types of legislation: “give same-sex couples equal legal rights and privileges as married couples, including the right to assist their loved ones in times of emergency as well as equal health insurance, employment benefits, and property and adoption rights.” Now, he has changed his opinion, saying that he believes in leaving the decisions up to the states themselves, and that he supports the repealing of DOMA. Therefore, his positioning makes him the most attractive candidate for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, and ally (LGBTQQA) community.
Lynn Blake is the Freshman Representative for the Trinity College Democrats.